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It is not uncommon, in a thriller, for someone early on to light a fuse or set a timer on an explosive device, dramatically heightening the tension. Thereafter, every time you see the heroine take a wrong turn or get entangled in some obstacle, you’re acutely conscious that time is running short and something is going to blow.

This is the context for U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s disastrous wrong turn in calling Thursday’s general election. She had already lit the fuse in March, when she filed a notification to the European Union that the U.K. intended to leave. Under Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, this starts a two-year clock. At the end of that time period, in March 2019, the U.K. is due to depart the EU.

In a standard thriller of this sort, there would be two possible routes our heroine might take: make sure everyone is sheltered from the impending blast; or stop the device before it counts down to zero.

PM May’s call for a general election, long before one was required, was an attempt at the former. If the U.K. could negotiate good terms to cover its future economic relations with the EU, the impact of Brexit would be minimized. As with any good thriller, she faced a number of daunting obstacles after she lit the fuse [Note: it is dramatically awkward that a heroine lights her own fuse, but such are British politics these days].

She faced a truculent EU, angered by the heresy of a country rejecting ever closer union. The EU had demanded a “divorce” agreement from the U.K. before it would talk about what came next. As part of that, it demanded a settlement of more than 60 billion euros, a particularly unpalatable number in the U.K., given domestic promises from the Leave campaign that Brexit would save money.

If PM May got past that obstacle, she was faced with daunting trade negotiations. The EU had made clear that it would not violate its principles to accommodate U.K. desires. One of the EU’s “Four Freedoms” is the free movement of people throughout the union. The others are the free movement of services, capital, and goods. The U.K. very much wanted to continue the latter three, but disquiet about immigration was a key motivating factor in the Brexit vote. The EU response was “No Europe a là carte.”

On top of all that, PM May had difficulty at home. Her party had not been enthusiastic about Brexit. In fact, her predecessor had called for last June’s referendum as a way of finally putting rebellious thoughts of Brexit to rest. (Oops). Her party enjoyed a 17-seat working majority in the Parliament. This was seen as too narrow to allow for easy maneuver in such a difficult situation.

With her party riding high in the polls, she called for an election three years early – the one held yesterday. The move backfired spectacularly. With all but one seat decided, her Conservative party dropped from 331 seats down to 318, short even of a majority. She may be able to retain control through an alliance with a small Northern Irish party, but a difficult situation just became much more so.

So where does that leave our heroine? She could try to negotiate divorce and Brexit with a far shakier hold on Parliament, but that looks daunting. There could be another election, if no one can form a government, but remember – the Brexit fuse is burning and yet another vote would take more time.

We can insert here another possibility that would not be crowd-pleasing in a regular thriller – what if the explosive is a dud? There is increasing evidence this is not the case. While the initial U.K. economic news following last summer’s vote was benign, storm clouds have begun to gather. And business investment is forward-looking; companies who cannot discern the rules governing trade three years hence are not going to make major investments now. Nor do “default rules” such as those of the World Trade Organization, provide an easy alternative.

That leaves one more alternative – defuse the device. Can the clock be stopped before something blows? On the face of it, this seems very difficult. First, PM May and the Conservatives would have to decide they want to stop Brexit. While the election was a rebuke, it was not really fought on the Brexit question and there is little indication that the Conservative stance has changed to oppose departure.

Even if it did, stopping the clock would require the consent of the 27 other countries in the EU. Not only are many of those countries angry at the U.K., but it is not clear that they would sign off on the status quo ante. The U.K. had several special deals adorning its membership, such as exemption from the euro and a budget rebate. Would those perks be granted again? Or would the U.K. be treated as a regular new applicant?

For aspiring clock-stoppers, there is a single hopeful note here: EU rules can be pliable in the face of an existential emergency. A decade ago, experts would have patiently explained that the European Central Bank cannot buy up sovereign debt of member states; it was expressly forbidden. That was subsequently set aside in the face of economic crisis. So there’s a little bit of wiggle room.

In the best summer thriller tradition, it is not at all clear how our heroine escapes. Stay tuned.

I am Chief Economist for Flexport. I previously served as Senior Economist for Trade for President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and handled international

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I am Chief Economist for Flexport. I previously served as Senior Economist for Trade for President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers and handled international economic issues for Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s Policy Planning Staff. My research has ranged from the political economy of trade agreements to U.S. economic relations with China. I have testified before Congressional committess including House Ways & Means and the Joint Economic Committee. I received my Ph.D. in economics from Stanford University and have taught at Yale, Columbia, Virginia, and Georgetown. Author of the new book "Rebuilding a Bipartisan Consensus on Trade Policy."